Tooth whiteners are known. Conventional tooth whiteners are laborious, unwieldy, and expensive.
Conventional tooth whitening methods are complicated and expensive, and, hence, are limited to a small portion of the population.
In one typical method, the user whose teeth are to be whitened must first visit a dentist in order to have a mouth tray made which is molded to fit that user's teeth from a cast made from an impression.
After the conventional steps of producing the mouth tray have been completed, then the mouth tray is given to the user, along with the tooth whitening compound(s).
In some tooth whitening methods, the user then takes the tooth whitening compounds home, and uses them in conjunction with the mouth tray in the privacy of his or her home.
In use, the mouth tray is at least partially filled by the user with the tooth whitening compound provided by the dental practitioner.
The user must then take the proper mouth tray for the respective upper or lower jaw and press the mouth tray filled with whitening compound up (or down) against the teeth to be whitened.
The user then holds the mouth tray filled with the compound in place against the teeth for a specified period of time.
After the specified period of time, the user removes the mouth tray and the bulk of the compound, and discards the used whitening compound.
Typically, the whitening procedure is a multi-day procedure.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,879,691 to Sagel et al. discloses a delivery system for a tooth whitener using a strip of material having low flexural stiffness.
Some known conventional whitening methods (e.g., the type of methods that utilize either a traditional tray or an adhesive strip) require that the whitening compound be forced on the gingival tissue in the region adjacent to the teeth to be whitened. That forcing whitening compound on the gingival tissue may result in a burning sensation to that tissue.
Many known whitening compounds have the drawback that they dry out the teeth, in use, owing to the whitening compounds drawing moisture out of the teeth. Such dried out teeth are more sensitive to hot and cold. Accordingly, many prior art whiteners required desensitizers (desensitizing compounds) so that the patients would not be bothered by their temperature-sensitive dried out teeth.